Brandon Records
Top 10 Albums of 2007
(from someone who knows nothing about music)
I'm excited. I've never made a music list before, so it was fun to try and figure out what all was eligible and which albums I loved the most. I'll be the first to mention that my musical tastes (or maybe just my musical acquisitions) aren't very diverse. Sue me. Also, I included albums that were released in the US this year, which accounts for the two foreign albums in my top 5 that were technically released last year. But in the end, it was pretty easy to distill my favorites of the year, and they are all included here, whether or not they made my top 10. The honorable mentions are unranked simply because I like them all about the same and wanted to acknowledge them even though they didn't make the top 10. Oh, and I only considered LPs, so sorry to the few EPs I listened to (Four Winds, If You Want Blood, Lon Gisland, all exemplary). I did try and scope out various music critics' lists, but I'm pretty sure it didn't affect mine at all, since our lists are fairly divergent, and my top 4 aren't anyone's top 4. It helps that I didn't have to consider MIA or Jay-Z for my list. And it also helps that my number one was glaringly obvious to me. Let's see if it'll be as obvious to you.
Caveat: I really need to listen to these more, as they were this close to making my list:
Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):
Challengers
by the New Pornographers:
Perfect for summer with a twinge of bittersweet nostalgia, Challengers is mostly a fun listen. It's almost definitely my favorite New Pornographers album, and ranges from the superfast (All of the Things that go to Make Heaven and Earth) to the ponderous (Challengers). My favorites are many: "All the Old Showstoppers," with its glorious "Somebody beside you slipped your head inside the crown." "Myriad Harbour," which, what the F is that song about? "Unguided," my favorite of the pensive songs probably because of its empowerment. And "Adventures in Solitude," which should have closed the album--rather than the solid, but lesser "The Spirit of Giving."
Rating: 4/5
The
Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter by Josh Ritter:
Guess who first recommended Josh Ritter to me? Stephen King, no big. Apparently he's a big country/alt country/Southern music (rockabilly, bluegrass, I don't think he cares) aficionado, and his favorite album of last year was Ritter's The Animal Years. So I checked it out, and it turns out, I freaking loved that album. This one isn't quite up to that level, at least for me, but it has its fair share of gems. "The Temptation of Adam," has been a consistent player on my iTunes this past semester, and is my obvious favorite. "Mind's Eye" rocks more than any previous Ritter song, and "Right Moves" recalls his earlier "Wolves." In all, a bit inconsistent, but you could do much worse.
Rating: 4/5
In
Rainbows by Radiohead:
This one's here kind of as a concession. I still haven't listened to it that much, but when I do, it's powerful. It's difficult to stop listening to it. But anyway, everyone and their old joke loves this album, and I certainly like it, but I haven't gotten around to it as much as I should have.
Rating: 4/5?
Raising
Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss:
I don't care if it's nothing new, I love this album. It's a collection of fairly simple stories, sung in a beautiful hybrid of southern rock and bluegrass. I feel like I should go read Flannery O'Connor after listening to this, or at least go churn some butter for the county fair. And I like that. It's wistful for a time that never existed for me. My favorites are "Killing the Blues," "Polly Come Home," and "Please Read the Letter," but there's not really a dud among them for me.
Rating: 4/5
Voxtrot
by Voxtrot:
Hyperliterate adolescent lyrics? So it's basically the Dawson's Creek of music. And I love it. "Introduction" kicks it off recalling a reckless youth, setting the perfect tone for the rest. "Kid Gloves" has long been my favorite, along with "Ghost," but "Future, Pt. 1" and "Real Life Version" feel like Creek montages that never existed. It really comes down to me loving the Voxtrot sound, and I await their follow-up.
Rating: 4/5
And now my top 10 Albums of 2007, in which my extreme lack of musical diversity will reveal itself:
10.
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga by Spoon--Let's start with my two contenders for favorite:
"Black Like Me" was my first favorite, a great little closing ballad that I
absolutely love, particularly the use of background noise conveying that sense
of isolation the song describes. Then came "The Underdog," which, if (for
whatever reason) someone put a gun to my head and asked for my favorite song
from this album, would be it. It has that spirited Spoon sound that can
sound happy-go-lucky yet jilted all at the same time--think "The Two Sides of
Monsieur Valentine" or especially "Sister Jack." Of course, there are
plenty of other highlights (and a few that I just don't care about), namely,
"Don't Make Me a Target," "The Ghost of You Lingers," and "You Got Yr. Cherry
Bomb."
Rating: 4/5
9.
The Stage Names by Okkervil River--As I explained to L, I love the
beginning, very middle, and end, and like the parts in between. My
favorite is obviously the one that commonly shows up on my most played list:
"John Allyn Smith Sails," which awesomely becomes the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B"
at the end. And it starts out awesomely macabre and romantic. In
fact, the entire album is awfully Romantic in that sense of melodramatic acts,
exotic imagery, nostalgia, and I am certainly a sucker for Romanticism.
The beginning songs "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe" and "Unless it's Kicks"
are probably my second and third favorites, although I'm not a fan of the slant
rhyme on "silence," (which is more than made up for by the greatness of rhyming
"climax" with "IMAX"). Then there's some good stuff, but it's just
preparing you for "Plus Ones," a lovely, enchanting play on culture. Then
we get some more good, followed by "Title Track," and my aforementioned
favorite.
Rating: 4.5/5
8.
Ghost by Radical Face--Praise be to Allah for Ryan introducing me to
Radical Face. This is one of the most cohesive albums of the year, each
song really developing all that came before it. The second song, "Welcome
Home, Son," is the one that has stuck with me most, and is for me the most
powerful song of the album. I love the wind and chimes that open it.
In fact, probably due to that tremendous introduction "Asleep on a Train," I
feel like every song is sung in a partially open-air environment, whether it be
a train itself, or a dilapidated old haunted house, or a ship under the stars,
or simply out on the porch. "Winter is Coming" is another of my favorites,
though there's not a song I don't adore.
Rating: 4.5/5
7.
Cease to Begin by Band of Horses--As much as I liked Everything All the
Time, I like Cease to Begin even more. "Is There a Ghost" was exactly what
I needed to hear after waiting however long for the new Band of Horses album.
And it remains one of my favorites. "The General Specific" is my favorite
right now, a song that's incredibly, percussively happy for a change. It
helps that it was used brilliantly in the Christmas episode of Gossip Girl, and
The O.C. is where I first learned about Band of Horses. I am such a pop
culture creation. Moving on, "Islands on the Coast," "Cigarettes, Wedding
Bands," and "Ode to LRC" represent an enjoyable shift to more fast-paced
awesomeness, and "Detlef Schrempf," apart from being the greatest name in the
history of words, recalls Band of Horses' debut album gorgeously.
Rating: 4.5/5
6.
All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone by Explosions in the Sky--I could listen
to "The Birth and Death of the Day" on repeat for geological epochs. The
opening seems to reference "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (Who says I didn't learn
anything in Academic Decathlon?) and quickly transitions into more Explosions
territory. Maybe it's just me, but every time the music evokes space or
weather or nature or anything, I always eventually go back to FNL. I can't
help it that Peter Berg but Explosions on the map (for me), but they completely
represent Texas optimism now for me. "It's Natural to be Afraid" eerily
creates a sense of impending doom, then it dissipates until a battle is waged at
the end. It's incredibly sharp, and the 13-minute song is well worth the
time. This album is an awesomely symphonic battle with overwhelming
natural forces seen through the lens of a nightmare, and I love every minute of
it.
Rating: 4.5/5
5.
Neon Bible by Arcade Fire--Full disclosure: I hadn't listened to
this album until seeing it on everyone's top 50 lists, topping a few of them.
I still haven't listened to Arcade Fire's first album since I first got it.
But Neon Bible has become a staple, ever since that first time I listened to it,
which awesomely, was the day of Chrismukkah as I was running errands.
"Black Mirror," the opening, presents a haunting examination of, well, you, and
society. It is a mirror after all, and the album further explores war and
religion and commerce and family through individual characters. But the
album on the whole is overflowing with dark, haunting images of doom, from the
"great black wave in the middle of the sea" to the antichrist to your family
dying to imprisonment. I'm not certain why some have called the album
weirdly uplifting ("weirdly" I get), unless it's the same way really beautiful
yet dark movies aren't so much depressing as awesome (like "There Will Be Blood"
for instance). Weirdly, the automotive songs are the brightest and most
fun, from "Keep the Car Running" which you will swear you've heard before to "No
Cars Go" with its systematic chanting.
Rating: 4.5/5
4.
The End of History by Fionn Regan--This Irish album is the first of two
foreign albums that were technically released last year, but came out in the
States this year. It's a collection of deceptively simple songs that
cohere so well they live up to the grandeur required by the album title. I
could probably write an essay on how this album describes human history through
its songs, culminating in the wartime apocalypse "Bunker or Basement," but I'll
spare you the length for once. Each individual song is an old-fashioned
folk tale performed with vocals and a guitar, but they are rife with references,
explicit and thematic, to the artistic world, from literature like the Bible and
Alice in Wonderland to the inherent artfulness of order as in "Abacus."
"The Underwood Typewriter" is my favorite (along with "Abacus"), as it was the
first Regan song I'd heard and perfectly explored parenthood and print, my class
with Dr. Brooks at the time. "Abacus" meanwhile portrays a slightly
optimistic scene ("If we leave tonight, then we leave it all behind") that is
merely a ruse; "Bunker or Basement" follows, so "Abacus" is merely a stop-gap, a
temporary peace, but it's a beautiful one I love to explore and wish could last
forever.
Rating: 4.5/5
3.
Moo, You Bloody Choir by Augie March--The second foreign album that made
its way to America this year on my list, Australian folk-rock-pop (aren't such
categories confusing and limiting?) band Augie March floored me immediately with
their southern graces and literary background; it's a bit like The Proposition
being both brilliant and Australian while still a traditional western.
Songwriter Glenn Richards was a lit major or something (like Colin Meloy,
another favorite songwriter), and accordingly constructs freaking poems set to
rock music. The lyrics are always my favorite part, but sometimes you just
have to soak up the entire sound, as in "Vernoona" or "Just Passing Through."
The opener "One Crowded Hour" is the poppiest song on the album, and one of my
favorites: "I know you like your boys to take their medicine from the bowl
with a silver spoon, who'd run away the dish and scale the fish by the silvery
light of the moon, who were taught from the womb to believe till the tomb that
as far as their bleeding eyes see is a pleasure pen meant for them, builded and
rent for them, not for the likes of me." It's incredible how dense the
references are, from nursery rhymes to Coleridge poems, and all of it intensely
visual. The album has 14 songs, most of them pushing 5 minutes, and while
I have my favorites, every song has greatness to recommend it. To be
honest, I'm surprised at how country a lot of my favorite albums are, between
this, parts of my #1, Josh Ritter, and Raising Sand.
Rating: 4.5/5
2.
Once OST by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova--"Falling Slowly" better win
the Oscar. That song sold me on seeing Once, and it kicked off the film in
a great way, and one of the things I love about it is how it represents the
first major connection between them musically. If music is their language,
their romance, the embodiment of their relationship (which it certainly is),
Glen Hansard breaking down the structure of "Falling Slowly" in order to teach
Marketa Irglova, and then Irglova building on it represents their first spark,
the first time they fully connect, their intermingling on a musical plane, and
the beauty that their relationship creates. It's followed by practically
an Irglova solo (accompanied by Hansard's playing and joining in) that really
grew on me. It's impossible not to love "Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer
Sucker Guy" if just for it's charming light-heartedness. Then we move into
the record creation, which is like the two of them mixing DNA and creating a
baby, each song somehow living up to all that's come before, and by the time we
get to "Say it to Me Now," you'll want to immediately restart the album, or the
movie (since that song opens the film), and somehow, it never gets old.
Rating: 5/5
1.
Cassadaga by Bright Eyes--I would have thought it impossible to supplant
Cassadaga as my favorite album of the year, but those three gave it a run for
its money. Nevertheless, last Spring's champion stayed at the top for me.
After the Four Winds EP, I could hardly wait for Cassadaga, and it fulfilled
expectations, grew on me more, and after however many trillion listens I've
given it, from so many different and changing perspectives, I haven't fallen out
of love with this album. "Clairaudients (Kill or be Killed)" is (so far)
my favorite Bright Eyes opener, which traditionally feature some spoken word, in
this case an actual psychic advising Conor Oberst on his crosscountry journey.
Then we get "Four Winds," which I'd heard incessantly and loved since its
eponymous EP, followed by "When the Brakeman Turns My Way," an exquisitely
old-fashioned yearning written by someone I'd like to know. Then,
creepily, we get three songs in a row that clock in at 4:14, which adds to the
coincidence/psychic overtones: "Hot Knives" uniting us all in how much
everything sucks, "Make a Plan to Love Me," the one I always skip but which is
not only good but fits perfectly among the rest of the album, and "Soul Singer
in a Session Band," whose reference to a postmodern author ("I had a lengthy
discussion about the power of myth with a postmodern author who didn't exist")
danced through my head during my English final last year. "Classic Cars"
and "I Must Belong Somewhere" are my favorites from the remainder of the album,
but I wanted to move on to the album as a whole. It was written while
Oberst traveled across America, specifically seeking out places like the four
spiritual vortexes of Sedona or its sister town in pyschic New Age-ness,
Cassadaga. And it feels exactly like that. There are cars and
highways, cheap hotels, below-the-radar town attractions, and ultimately
old-fashioned, intimate and accordingly universal revelations. I don't
think Oberst discovered anything really profound or life-changing on his
journey, but I think he certainly rediscovered small-town America and captured
it beautifully on his album. For all his cynicism in "Four Winds" and "No
One Would Riot for Less," he ends it with "I Must Belong Somewhere," a
powerfully optimistic declaration that everything's going to be okay. Well
he actually ends it with "Lime Tree," which is kind of like the flashforward
from the journey. The singer in the final song has been recalling his
travels with nostalgic romanticism, and now he reveals his present, which starts
out lost but ends positively hopeful.
P.S. It turns out, this is also Johnny Depp's favorite album of the year. I always knew I was essentially Johnny Depp deep down.
Rating: 5/5
Favorite Songs of 2007 Not Already Covered:
At
first I was gonna make a Top 10 Albums and a Top 40 Songs, but I have a feeling
if I made that song list, it would be populated with songs off the
aforementioned albums. So instead, I decided to just give a brief addendum
as to my favorite songs of the year that were not off any of my favorite albums.
And as always, I haven't listened to even all of what should be my must-listens
(Matt Pond PA, Andrew Bird, for instance).
1. "I'm Not There" by Bob Dylan. The song has been around forever, but it was officially released this year, and is without question my favorite song of the year. I also love the Sonic Youth cover, but this one is garbled beauty.
Best of the rest in no particular order:
"Icky
Thump" by the White Stripes. This was my freaking anthem last
August. I listened to this incessantly in anticipation of the album, and I
still love it. The guitar sound is incendiary. Actually, the
politics are clumsy but fun (and hey, it is garage after all); it's like reading
Rolling Stone that way. As much as I may agree, it's mostly fun to see how
vehemently they hate the Bush administration.
"Reinvent
the Wheel" by Bright Eyes. This one's off of the Four Winds EP, and
I always anticipate it after "Four Winds" on Cassadaga, even though it's not
there. And as much as I love it, it would not have fit on the album, so
instead it made for excellent EP material. That said, "Cartoon Blues" and
"Tourist Trap" are beautiful songs that would have felt right at home on
Cassadaga.
"The
Midnight Choir" by the Thrills. Still love the album, and not
including it in my honorable mentions was either an oversight or I was trying to
limit it to only 5. Either way, this album opener is my favorite song from
the album almost certainly due to the mandolin. Speaking of, that Paul
McCartney mandolin song is another one I love from this year.
"1234" by Feist. Overplayed? Certainly. But it doesn't really take away from how much I like the song (and nursery rhymes, and arithmetic).
"Young
Folks" by Peter Bjorn and John. I mention it now in order to group
my overplayed songs together. But, not to be one of those people, I liked
this song before it was big, and still do.
"Kids on my Shoulders" by the White Rabbits. Here's another album I need to listen to more, because I always only get through the first four songs. That said, they're all great.
"Emily
Jean Stock" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. In general, I'm not so
much a fan of CYHSY, but I gotta give it to them on this one. I've
listened to this song way too much in the past year.
"The
Fatalist" by Robbers on High Street. I feel certain that this album
would have at least made my honorable mentions if I could get a hold of it.
As it is, I only have five songs from it, and I love them, but "The Fatalist" is
my favorite.
"Ruby" by the Kaiser Chiefs. I don't like this as much as the others at all, but it is fun to say "Ruby" as fast as possible on repeat.
"Phantom
Limb" by the Shins. Now it's on those commercials (I have a feeling
it's the first single from the album), but it's the catchiest song off the
album, and accordingly the first one that I latched onto.
"Alone
with the Alone" by Six Organs of Admittance. As you can see, I've
moved on to songs off the albums of my 3 almost-rans. This one's from a
band I'd never heard of, but apparently they're experimentalish indie
(occasionally post) rock. None of that means anything. What this
album is is beautiful, mostly instrumental spaghetti western music. At
least to me. And this is our introduction to the album, which sold me on
it immediately.
"No Emotion" by Idlewild. "Whatever we do, we show no emotion." It's the greatest snub song of the year. Special mention goes to all of the first four songs off Make Another World though.
"On
the Bubble" by the Broken West. The entire
album is light fun, but this is my favorite, with its pounding opening hook and,
of course, the clapping.
"Ddiamondd" by Battles. A freaking incredible song that not only challenges the speed of your tongue (you'll see what I mean) but is beautifully orderly and mathy. Seriously, this feels like a fractal in music form.
"The
Magic Position" by Patrick Wolf. It's been a while since I've given
this album a listen, but the title song is worthy of naming rights, simply for
its awesome 80s-ness.
"Henrietta"
by the Fratellis. Yes, I love "Chelsea Dagger" and all the rest
too, but this remains my favorite.
"Impossible Germany" by Wilco. To be honest, it's the only song from Sky Blue Sky, acclaimed as it is, that I ever listen to. Given FNL's love for Wilco, I ought to remedy that soon enough.
"Scythian
Empires" by Andrew Bird. I kind of weirdly latched onto this song,
and I'd say it's the song off Armchair Apocrypha that fits in best with my top
10 albums of the year.
"Tick
Tick Boom" by the Hives. For the obvious reasons, and because it
continues the Hives' excellent track record.
"Believe" by the Bravery. Only because it became the FNL promo song (which was so much better than "Time Won't Let Me Go" as the de facto Rescue Me promo song, not that that's a horrible song). Also because it's very fun. But mostly because of FNL.
"Young Bride" by Midlake. First, because I like supporting Texas bands. Second, because it's weirdly gorgeous, wintry, and antique-y.
"Grace Kelly" by Mika. Overplayed in our apartment, but it is the twist song. Plus, the singer sounds exactly like Freddie Mercury, which he acknowledges in this song.
And lastly, an obvious favorite:
"Anyone
Else But You" by MICHAEL CERA and Ellen Page. My favorite
soundtracks (other than Once) are Across the Universe and I'm Not There, but
Juno has the tremendous vocal stylings of George Michael Bluth, and that makes
it a winner.
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